[Eberron] The names in Five Nations are pretty bad

[Arkhandus]

Don't threadcrap, Twowolves. Such things are not for discussion on EN World, it's in the rules.

Whizbang: Yeah, but I think the majority of D&Ders are English-speakers, so we're bound to see it as wierd if it looks or sounds like a random English word.

DigitalArchon: Great. :\ Now I have an overwhelming urge to play a silly gnome, or worse half-orc, by the name of Majujuboo. Just because.

 

[shilsen]

This subject is one of the many places where I find that gamers really don't want as much realism/verisimilitude in their games as they often claim to. In the real world, one constantly meets people with names which are funny, strange and/or non-reflective of the particular culture they come from, but (usually) nobody points at the person and goes, "Ha ha - that's so stupid/unrealistic!" simply because they happen to be ... well, real.

 

[Twowolves]

Don't threadcrap, Twowolves. Such things are not for discussion on EN World, it's in the rules.

I'm not threadcrapping, not even close. But I'm also not going to just sit by and let someone falsely claim "such-and-such says X" when it does not. Likewise, I wouldn't let a comment like "major religion X makes it's bread out of babies!!!11!!" go uncontested.

And I wasn't the one that brought it up, nor am I the only one to comment on the subject. If a moderator wants to weigh in, I'll be glad to listen and heed their call, but until then I'm just as free to post my opinions and comments as every other member of this message board.

 

[Aeric]

I've always viewed Karrnath as Germany. Karrnath suffered greatly as a result of the Last War, and had to go to some extremes merely to survive. This makes it a perfect analogy to post-WWI Germany. The Emerald Claw is practically a gang of pulp-era Nazis as it is; it wouldn't take much for their radical ideology to take hold in Karrnath the way the Nazis took over in Germany.

Thrane could be either French or English, although Italian or Spanish might work well due to the strong presence of the Silver Flame (Spain because of the Inquisition, Italy for obvious reasons [the Vatican]). The weather doesn't really work for either of those, however.

Breland strikes me as similar to either England or the U.S., and Aundair has always been France to me for some reason (maybe it's the wine).

Cyre is a bit harder to pin down for me. Normally, I don't give it much thought, since it no longer exists, but there are certainly plenty of Cyrans who still exist. They should have a strong national character so people don't simply write them off as extinct.

Ultimately, however, I think it would be better to steer away from assigning real-world counterparts to Eberron. Khorvaire is simply too different from Europe (or any other part of the world for that matter) for the comparison to work.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Memo to all - Don't discuss real-life politics or religion. If you think anybody is doing so and you are tempted to respond, please don't - just report the original post to the moderators and we'll handle it.

Thanks.

 

[GAAAHHH]

If we're trying to "assign" real world countries to the Five Nations, I always found Breland to be more American than English (very large country, its people aren't very religious and pride themselves on being open-minded). Thrane (not "Thrance", though that makes me think you think it's like France) always made me think of a more medieval (or earlier) Italy... the whole Holy Roman Empire thing. Karnaath seems to me like Russia or Germany. Aundair I thought of as English. I wasn't sure what to make of Cyre, since they don't actually give us much info about what it was like pre-Mournland, but the little bits in the Five Nations book made me think of France.

The Holy Roman Empire was never in Italy. Charlemagne was crowned the first emperor of the HRE, and eventually it passed to rulers in Germany and Austria. It stayed there until the fall of the Habsburgs at the end of World War 1.

Edit - There is a big difference between the Roman Empire, and the Holy Roman Empire. Holy Roman Emperor was the title granted to Charlemagne by the pope as defender of christianity.

 

[Ace32]

The Holy Roman Empire was never in Italy. Charlemagne was crowned the first emperor of the HRE, and eventually it passed to rulers in Germany and Austria. It stayed there until the fall of the Habsburgs at the end of World War 1.

As far as I know, northern Italy was very much involved in the Holy Roman Empire and I believe a number of those states were part of the Empire (though I can't recall if any ever served as electors or anything like that). In fact, the unification of Italy was severed hampered by the HRE's meddling for some time - not that you can blame them for wanting to prevent the growth of a rival state.

 

[GAAAHHH]

As far as I know, northern Italy was very much involved in the Holy Roman Empire and I believe a number of those states were part of the Empire (though I can't recall if any ever served as electors or anything like that). In fact, the unification of Italy was severed hampered by the HRE's meddling for some time - not that you can blame them for wanting to prevent the growth of a rival state.

Hmm... I guess I was wrong about that. The books and TV programs I have read and seen only touched on it in passing, and it has been a while since I saw the map of the latter HRE.

Re-looking over the map in Fall of the House of Habsburg (An interesting history of the situations leading up to World War 1), the Austro-Hungarian Empire did control a good part of northern Italy until 1870.